The Government had expected to collect a total of £3.8billion from the reforms over the next five years. But figures buried in the Autumn Statement documents showed the Treasury now expects to rake in £6.9billion by 2021 – or £3.1billion more than it originally expected.

Landlords are set to hand the Treasury a huge extra windfall under stamp duty reforms

The extra tax haul is forecast despite the stampede to purchase buy-to-lets before the April deadline.

Mortgage and transaction figures show a big buy-to-let spike in the first few months of 2017, as landlords pulled forward their purchases.

Some critics of the stamp duty changes had hoped that the Chancellor may axe them or water them down in the Autumn Statement, while other commentators had campaigned for an overall cut in stamp duty to lift the burden on home buyers.

In the end stamp duty remained unchanged, although it could still be adjusted in the March Budget.

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Critics seized on the 76 per cent rise in tax receipts as evidence the Government is using landlords as a ‘cash cow’.

They said the second-home stamp duty tax had failed in its aim to boost the number of first-time buyers.

Vanessa Warwick, a landlord and co-founder of the website Property Tribes, said: ‘Most first-time buyers are struggling to get on the property ladder because of the difficulty in getting a mortgage, not because of landlords.

‘The Treasury is using landlords as a cash cow – we’re being made to carry the can again.’

The second home tax hike was introduced by former chancellor George Osborne. Anybody buying a property to rent out or use as a holiday home has to pay an extra 3 per cent stamp duty surcharge, adding thousands of pounds to their tax bill.

It applies to companies and individuals, no matter how many properties are being purchased.

On a £200,000 property, landlords now have to find £7,500 to cover the stamp duty costs – up from just £1,500 before the changes. This means the landlord would end up paying five times more than a private purchases in this example.

The Treasury revealed it had underestimated the number of landlords who brought forward purchases to beat the tax deadline by around 50,000. This cost the taxman an estimated £300million in lost revenue.

However, the figures suggest it will more than make up for this in the long term, as landlords continue to snap up homes. Landlords have suffered several blows over the past year as the Government has attempted to cool the buy-to-let market.

From January, lenders will be forced to carry out much tougher checks on landlords in an effort to stamp out risky lending.

Then in April, the Government will gradually reduce the amount of tax relief landlords can claim on their mortgage interest payments from 45 per cent to 20 per cent.

Any moves to cut the extra stamp duty charge would face a backlash, however, as they would be seen as helping landlords over struggling home buyers.

Despite that many in the property industry are still calling for a cut.

James Evans, chief executive of estate agents Douglas & Gordon said: 'The government absolutely has to look at the stamp duty and it’s disappointing this opportunity has been missed.

'The 3 per cent SDLT rate on additional homes is effectively a wealth tax that is putting off the people who would like to invest in one or two buy-to-let properties.

He also said that big stamp duty bills for buyers of the most expensive properties need to be cut, as claimed they are harming the entire market.

Mr Evans said: 'People who genuinely understand the London property market will be disappointed at the lack of change to the highest SDLT band.

'The volume of properties in the top bracket is relatively very small, but the high rate of SDLT is stifling movement at the very top of the property food chain and that in turn is leading to stagnation in the rest of the market.'